The Grateful Dead were in full swing as they rolled into 1970. Having just released Live Dead (November ’69), their financial affairs were as close to tidy as they had been since they had signed with Warner Brothers in September 1966. Their touring schedule, such as it was, involved more or less constant playing: they played almost 290 shows in ’69 and ’70, meaning shows virtually every other day for two years running. December 1969 took them from San Francisco to LA, Texas, Florida, and Massachusetts. They kicked off 1970 in New York before heading back to California, then Oregon and Hawaii, and finally closing out the month in New Orleans. Still in their twenties, the Dead were playing to audiences in the thousands all over the United States.
This period was a high-water mark for the band in general. Musically, they were beginning to move away from the experimental psychedelia that had characterized the two preceding years. While it had yielded some fabulous music and a record-breaking live album, the Anthem/Live Dead years had also seen the erstwhile firing of two band-members including Pigpen, who was otherwise alienated by the influence of LSD on the band’s musical direction and structure. Garcia would later call their music of that period “self-consciously weird.” Meanwhile, the time they had spent on Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa had put them in severe debt, prompting their grueling tour schedule.
In April 1970, the band would discover that their manager Lenny Hart had been systematically diverting money to a private account set up with his bank-teller girlfriend. While suspicions had floated about for a while (Pigpen’s organ had been repossessed from the stage at a sound-check in December), the other shoe dropped over a missing royalty check destined for Garcia. He and Mountain Girl had had their eye on a house and MG had been calling the business office on Union Street regularly, awaiting the arrival of money owed Garcia for his work on the motion picture Zabriskie Point. When the check arrived, Gail Turner called the Garcias; by the time MG got down to the office, Lenny claimed that no such check had arrived. That was the last straw: RamRod was called in and Lenny was given a few days to get the books in order and turn them over, during which time he fled to Mexico with 150 thousand dollars. Mickey subsequently went into a crippling depression. Phil's father died around the same time, as did Pigpen's mother. Later that year, Jerry’s mother Ruth passed away after a month-long convalescence following a car accident. Janis Joplin, longtime friend and neighbor of the band, died of a heroin overdose in early October, two weeks after Hendrix had taken too many sleeping pills and choked to death in his sleep.
But in January, the band was in great form, getting a lot of mileage out of the by-now-familiar Live Dead material while working up the songs that would yield Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty later that same year. Most shows would incorporate the Other One suite, although it was not always complete; they omitted Cryptical one night and the reprise on another. There was by now, however, a real drum solo that could stretch up to ten minutes, a significant expansion on the initial few bars between Cryptical and Phil’s bomb into the Other One. Drum solos appeared elsewhere as well, most notably in Good Lovin’ but also in Alligator or even Dancin’. Dark Star was frequent, though less so, as was St. Stephen.
Among the newer material in the rotation was Mason’s Children (consistently tight and energetic). Phil introduced it on January 3rd as a song they had written for a film project they had finally bailed on. It was supposed to be shot at a drive-in movie theater, where they would play to parked cars. Dire Wolf appeared almost nightly as well. Jerry was determined to get people to sing along to the “don’t murder me” chorus; he would often introduce the song as a “paranoid fantasy song,” one you could easily sing along to if you wanted. He even went as far as rearranging the tune on February 1st so that it started with the chorus. Black Peter was a near-nightly fixture, as were Cumberland Blues and High Time. Uncle John’s Band made a few appearances, but the performances were still pretty sloppy.
Pigpen was in high form musically, if not physically. Lovelight was well-established by then, so much so that fans in the audience were calling out parts of his “hands-outta-yo-pockets” fix-up rap. Hard To Handle was a regular, and the audience was treated to the occasional Easy Wind and Good Lovin’ as well. He wasn’t always right on point, though since he didn’t care, it came over better than when Weir or Garcia flubbed. The latter two would either mumble or stop altogether, while, Pig just barreled ahead with whatever words came through his head. He might repeat parts of verses or switch the odd word around, but he always sold it. The end of the Live Dead years would open up some room for Pigpen to contribute more songs: within two years he would be breaking out Run Rudolph, Two Souls in Communion, Empty Pages, and a half-dozen other shorter-format songs.
TC’s tenure was coming to a close. He was with the band until they returned to San Francisco in early February. His contributions were less and less evident at this point. The work he had done to color Mountains of the Moon and more introspective versions of Dark Star was less integral as the years went on, and his approach to the shorter, country-flavored tunes was a bit stiff. He was offered a job writing for a musical and he and the band had an amicable parting of ways.
Much of the new material featured three-part harmonies, influenced, Phil would explain later, by Crosby Stills and Nash. Stephen Stills had spent most of the summer of ‘69 living at Mickey’s ranch in Novato and the two bands had spent a fair amount of time together. While Jerry and Bob had a relatively experienced approach to singing, Phil was eager but untrained, and his frequent high harmonies sounded strained in a live setting. Can’t blame the guy for trying. Phil always had a very serious approach regardless of objective merit. I almost laughed out loud after Feedback one night: following a good ten minutes of distorted screeching and rumbling, he stepped to the mic and said, with a tone befitting the flawless completion of Beethoven’s ninth: “Thank you. Goodnight.”
Bob Weir's role in the band was growing significantly. Just over a year earlier he’d been sorta-fired because his musical chops and responsiveness lagged behind Phil and Jerry’s. The tapes from the first shows of January and February (Fillmore East and New Orleans respectively) had Weir very high in the mix, giving a close-up view of what he was doing. I was most struck by just how varied his parts are; each chord change, each shift and modulation, had a distinct Weir-part built around what the others were doing. Historically, Weir has been fairly low in the mix, and when he goes from straight chords to inversions to single notes, it’s easy to lose track of where he is and what he’s doing.
There were two occasions on which equipment issued left some space to fill. The first time, Weir did Monkey and the Engineer solo, with a little Jerry sneaking in towards the end. On January 31st, however, Phil’s amplifier blew out. Weir carried the show with five tunes mostly by himself: Long Black Limousine, Seasons of my Heart, Saw Mill, Bound in Memories, and Race is On (Jerry followed it up with five of his own before they closed with Cumberland).
Let the record show that, after the late-’68 Hartbeats experiment, Weir caught up quick.
Rock and roll equipment in those days was primitive – broken strings were an almost nightly occurrence – and the Dead had yet to start using a professional PA (Alembic would be their first, in spring ’71). Their system in January 1970 was mostly homemade, and Bear had returned to the fold (he and the band had parted ways in August ’66). Bear was a stickler for sound, an electronic mad-scientist type whose continual experiments were hampered by his constant LSD ingestion. On one hand, the soundboard tapes from this period generally sound very good - when everything was running right – but they are often incomplete. There were relatively frequent calls from the stage about tweaking the monitor mix, feedback issues and system hum. Jerry got noticeably cranky on February 1st: “Ah, could you eliminate the ring from the PA please. The ring is most annoying, most annoying.” to which Weir added “What you’re hearing now is the Bear solo.”
Sound issues abounded on the last night of January, at the Warehouse in New Orleans. Like at Woodstock, a grounding problem caused electrical shocks for the singers and they had to stop a while and fix it. Phil cracked: “For a while, we thought the only life around hear was the heat!”
Weir took the opportunity to wax antiauthoritarian: “ I got a statement to make: This seems to be a blatant attempt, by the establishment,” (laughter) “to keep rockers from coming here and, ah, save this fair city for the straight people. Well…”
Jerry: “The revolution’s over…”
Phil: “Go home, folks… Remember, obedience to the law is the only true freedom.”
Weir: “And crime does not pay.”
The exchange was oddly appropriate for the evening: upon return to their Bourbon Street hotel, they found the police crawling all over the place and were all hauled off to the precinct. This was a show bust, by most accounts, and photographers and media did nothing to keep things civil or low key. Phil writes that Weir somehow managed to handcuff an officer to his desk! Pigpen and TC, roommates and both non-smokers, were not arrested. Mickey presented an ID that said Summer Wind (“spiritual advisor”) and so he was not officially booked. Eight hours later, after a phone call by Warner’s Joe Smith to the New Orleans DA promising that the Dead would stay out of New Orleans (and a significant campaign contribution), the band were released on bail. Early that same morning, Mountain Girl had called the hotel looking for Jerry to inform him that she had just given birth to a baby girl: Annabelle. “Sorry honey,” she was told, “the police came and took them away last night.”
Bail had wiped out the proceeds from that night, and they booked another gig on February 1st to make up for it. They would share the bill with Fleetwood Mac, leading to a raucous, 40-minute, all-star-jam Lovelight closer. No mention was made of the legal trouble, though there was a shout-out of sorts. The MC introduced the band: “And now those who made this afternoon possible, the G…”
“The New Orleans Police Department!”
These were the days of adventure, excitement and uncertainty. The GD machine was taking on a life of its own and the band was reaching an adulthood of sorts. The music is strong, tight and forward-looking. We hear the inauspicious beginnings of Uncle John’s Band, early stabs at the China-Rider transition jam, experimentation with arrangements for the new material, top-notch performances of the Live Dead material, some very rare acoustic stuff, and an epic Easy Wind (Jan. 30). My favorite show was Jan 2nd in New York (a Miller soundboard circulates), but the whole series was real interesting. The legendary February 14, 1970 show at the Fillmore East was just around the corner, and Harpur College (5/2) only three months away, so January is worth checking out if only for historical context.
Up next: I heard the Oakland run from February 1990 but there’s nothing of great import to say. I’ll have a post up next week on the first part of the Furthur run. I also bought Rock Scully’s Living With The Dead, so you can expect a review within a few weeks. Cheers.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
7 Walkers
In July 2008, Bill Kreutzmann ran across Louisiana native Malcolm “Papa Mali” Welbourne backstage at a festival in Oregon; the two hit it off and began playing together whenever the opportunity presented itself. In October of last year, sessions started up for an album of songs written by Papa Mali and Robert Hunter. Soon after, they began performing as 7 Walkers. They have been out and about since then and a number of shows have trickled down to etree, whence they were dutifully snatched up by yours truly.
Papa Mali is on the road 200-odd days a year and has an impressive resume. He toured with various blues and funk bands starting in his late teens and found his way into reggae with the Killer Bees. He eventually toured with Burning Spear, where he got the nickname he has gone by for the last twenty-plus years. His first solo record was real dirty swamp music, his second was more raw delta blues with a jazzy bent to it. He has toured with B.B. King, Cyril Neville and Derek Trucks, and is a regular fixture at the big summer festivals, where he inevitably winds up sitting in with any number of headliners and all-star bands.
His stylistic range is pretty broad, and even if he sticks to a mostly rock sound with 7 Walkers, he can throw some funk around and plays a mean slide. At the same time, he tends to keep things simple; there are no fireworks, no longs buildups or screaming, sustained leads. He is humble and versatile, so that he does justice to a wide range of sounds. His singing has a New Orleans/Dr. John sound on the edges, which comes out in some of the band’s swingier stuff.
Aside from Papa Mali and Kreutzmann, the official 7 Walkers band (named after one of the Hunter originals recorded for the album) also includes bassist Reed Mathis and multi-instrumentalist Matt Hubbard, from Willy Nelson’s band, who plays keyboards, harmonica and trombone. Mathis performed on the album and on the band’s early gigs, but not on the recent tour. He was replaced by George Porter Jr. for most of that time, though Brad Houser played on at least one gig. The bass slot is relatively conventional except when Porter is on board, in which case he sings a few (he does a mean Hey Pocky Way) and takes the occasional solo.
Hubbard is a great player whose facility with the trombone allows the band to take on a distinct New Orleans sound. One original on which the horn is prominent is a fun, if fairly generic, tune called New Orleans Crawl, but it is also integral in the band’s highly original take on Death Don’t Have No Mercy. The song gets a full Bourbon-Street-funeral treatment, a surprising adaptation in keeping with the character of the lyrics. They played it at all three of the shows I heard.
For a guy who doesn’t want to play with the Dead, Kreutzmann sure plays a lot of Grateful Dead music: 7 Walkers’ catalogue is almost exclusively GD material. They play a few covers and a handful of cuts from the album, but they also do a lot of material like Bertha, Sugaree, He’s Gone, Wharf Rat, Mr. Charlie, and even We Bid You Goodnight. On paper, this seems pretty uninspired but the approach is liberal and makes for interesting renditions. Papa Mali has no problem switching a few words here and there (“…something like a bird inside her sang,” “Got to get back on my feet someday”), and they managed to produce very interesting versions of Bird Song and Deal, to name a few standouts.
Overall, the band is very accessible: funky, versatile and surprisingly good, while sticking close to familiar territory. Here’s a great soundboard from a show in Denver in early June, which should cover all you need to hear to make up your mind. I’d definitely check them out if they come around your neighborhood.
Up Next: January 1970. I have 10 shows, so it’ll probably be two weeks.
Papa Mali is on the road 200-odd days a year and has an impressive resume. He toured with various blues and funk bands starting in his late teens and found his way into reggae with the Killer Bees. He eventually toured with Burning Spear, where he got the nickname he has gone by for the last twenty-plus years. His first solo record was real dirty swamp music, his second was more raw delta blues with a jazzy bent to it. He has toured with B.B. King, Cyril Neville and Derek Trucks, and is a regular fixture at the big summer festivals, where he inevitably winds up sitting in with any number of headliners and all-star bands.
His stylistic range is pretty broad, and even if he sticks to a mostly rock sound with 7 Walkers, he can throw some funk around and plays a mean slide. At the same time, he tends to keep things simple; there are no fireworks, no longs buildups or screaming, sustained leads. He is humble and versatile, so that he does justice to a wide range of sounds. His singing has a New Orleans/Dr. John sound on the edges, which comes out in some of the band’s swingier stuff.
Aside from Papa Mali and Kreutzmann, the official 7 Walkers band (named after one of the Hunter originals recorded for the album) also includes bassist Reed Mathis and multi-instrumentalist Matt Hubbard, from Willy Nelson’s band, who plays keyboards, harmonica and trombone. Mathis performed on the album and on the band’s early gigs, but not on the recent tour. He was replaced by George Porter Jr. for most of that time, though Brad Houser played on at least one gig. The bass slot is relatively conventional except when Porter is on board, in which case he sings a few (he does a mean Hey Pocky Way) and takes the occasional solo.
Hubbard is a great player whose facility with the trombone allows the band to take on a distinct New Orleans sound. One original on which the horn is prominent is a fun, if fairly generic, tune called New Orleans Crawl, but it is also integral in the band’s highly original take on Death Don’t Have No Mercy. The song gets a full Bourbon-Street-funeral treatment, a surprising adaptation in keeping with the character of the lyrics. They played it at all three of the shows I heard.
For a guy who doesn’t want to play with the Dead, Kreutzmann sure plays a lot of Grateful Dead music: 7 Walkers’ catalogue is almost exclusively GD material. They play a few covers and a handful of cuts from the album, but they also do a lot of material like Bertha, Sugaree, He’s Gone, Wharf Rat, Mr. Charlie, and even We Bid You Goodnight. On paper, this seems pretty uninspired but the approach is liberal and makes for interesting renditions. Papa Mali has no problem switching a few words here and there (“…something like a bird inside her sang,” “Got to get back on my feet someday”), and they managed to produce very interesting versions of Bird Song and Deal, to name a few standouts.
Overall, the band is very accessible: funky, versatile and surprisingly good, while sticking close to familiar territory. Here’s a great soundboard from a show in Denver in early June, which should cover all you need to hear to make up your mind. I’d definitely check them out if they come around your neighborhood.
Up Next: January 1970. I have 10 shows, so it’ll probably be two weeks.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Furthur Festival
This year’s Futhur Festival (May 28-30) was only the third of its kind, surprising in light of the fact that several second- and third-generation jam bands have been doing it regularly for years. Despite two years of the traveling Furthur Festival (little relation) and the multi-band Terrapin Station and Comes A Time gatherings, it is the first time a single Dead-related band has set up a festival of its own. While they could have undoubtedly drawn a respectable crowd on their own, they invited a half-dozen lesser-known bands to fill out the schedule, though Phil Lesh felt it was necessary to encourage the crowd to go see these bands (including his son’s), after the erstwhile “soundcheck” on the first night.
A controversial decision a few months ago saw them announcing the setlists for this festival ahead of time: the six official sets would each comprise one of their albums. Phil’s band had done this once before in May of ‘08 (though without announcing it in advance), and those shows had included some of the same albums. The reactions to this announcement had been rather befuddled; why do those again, and above all, why on earth advertise it so far in advance? This reviewer had found it strange to take away the element of surprise, a part of the atmosphere at Dead and Dead-family shows. As things got closer, however there was some excitement at the idea of hearing certain songs, particularly those that were rarely, if ever, part of the catalogue. Besides, it would have become immediately evident what they were up to anyway: it took less than an hour for people to figure it out when Phil and Friends did it two years ago.
Furthur’s current lineup has changed slightly, with the departure of Jay Lane on percussion and the replacement of background vocalist Zoe Ellis by Bay area alum Jeff Pehrson, but the sound is almost indistinguishable. Lane’s contribution had been somewhat superfluous, consisting more of embellishments than structural elements, and having an alto or a tenor voice in the background harmonies makes little difference. The band had continued their rehearsals, both private and “live,” in the run-up to the festival and they are improving noticeably. While some of the more esoteric material had an feeling of recital, the stuff that is well entrenched in the band-members’ respective solo catalogues hit some high peaks.
On the first night of the festival, the band played a two-and-a-half-hour set of popular material that would not feature in the headline shows, including the Eleven, with the original vocal arrangements, Eyes, Dark Star, Scarlet>Fire and Playin’ in the Band. The show was solid with at least one standout passage at the end of Unbroken Chain, a showcase for both Chimenti and John Kadlecik.
Two things became apparent that first night. First was the fluidity and responsiveness of Joe Russo. It was previously hard to discern just what he was doing, since he blended with Lane’s sound, but he is a very versatile player with a real facility in switching grooves and tempos in mid-swing. His ability to lockstep with Phil is reminiscent of John Molo, no small feat considering the disparity in their experience, but he’s more unconventional, peppering rim-shots and taps and rattles throughout.
The other revelation (if it can be called that) is that Phil is unquestionably the band’s director. It first became apparent when, at the reprise of Dark Star, Weir moved beautifully and organically into the Dark Star rhythm, setting the foundation for a jam on the main theme: Phil completely overrode it with his introduction to the piece’s “head” section. On the second night, Weir sang Friend of the Devil and included Phil’s verse (“You can borrow from the devil/ you can borrow from your friend/…”), which closed the song; after the last chord hit, Phil inexplicably felt it necessary to sing that verse again himself. Most tellingly, however, throughout the weekend, it was always Phil talking through the stage monitors between songs, as opposed to Weir or anyone else.
The six sets that comprised the official festival were, by and large, excellent, the first night being the stronger of the two. They covered each album in order, performing the modern versions of the songs: they omitted certain thematic passages, like the “Faster we go…” and “Quadlibet…” sections of The Other One, or the modulation at the end of Dancin’ In The Streets. Though it might have been an interesting exercise to perform everything just as it was on the record, learning it would have been unduly time-consuming and frankly pedantic.
The oddball material on the third night did come off a little stiff: Blues for Allah’s B-side had been performed exactly once and it was clear they were not completely comfortable with it. Aoxomoxoa’s Rosemary was a rare one (Phil sang it this time), and it is questionable whether “What’s Become of the Baby?” was ever performed at all. The lyrics, shared by Phil and Theresa Williams, were only slightly less indecipherable than on the record. Nonetheless, it was gratifying to relive those strange moments of the Grateful Dead’s catalogue in a live and modern setting, nothing’s wrong with a little nod to history and a touch of nostalgia.
Larry Campbell and Theresa Williams made liberal appearances throughout the weekend. Larry played a lot of fiddle, most notably on Brokedown Palace and Dupree’s Diamond Blues. The latter bears special mention as one the best songs of the festival: high energy and featuring stellar solos by all involved, it peaked out with a round of frankly hair-raising exchanges between Campbell, Kadlecik and Chimenti. Campbell played guitar as well on select songs: his contribution to Cumberland Blues was fantastic (even if everyone got a little carried away), I can’t think of anyone who can do that fast country stuff better than him.
Campbell’s wife Theresa Williams handled some important leads: ‘Till The Morning Comes, for one, which was originally sung in harmony by the boys in the band. Sunrise was a Donna Jean tune for Rex Jackson which definitely needed a female voice, and she handled that as well. Attics was another standout of the weekend. It was rather rarely performed by the Grateful Dead, and though it was in RatDog’s repertoire (mostly a-cappella), they never did it justice. The rendition led by Williams on the second night was an absolute gem, with beautiful, tightly orchestrated three- and four-part harmonies. It may have been the all-time best performance of the song.
A few more standouts worthy of mention for Kadlecik’s contributions: Easy Wind, Born Cross-Eyed, Help On the Way, Music (he closed it out with a monstrous lead), and Dancin’ In The streets. There was some confusion at the outset of the latter as to whether it would be in the disco-Dead or original style. However, his solo was straight out of the late-70s disco versions, both in the effect he was using (I’ve noted before how he seems to have all the exact same effects at Garcia), and the language of the riffs.
Finally, it should be mentioned that they premiered a new song by Robert Hunter known as Muli Guli, with a chord progression reminiscent of Pride of Cucamonga. It later appeared during the live rehearsal shows that followed the festival, joining Welcome To The Dance in a new batch of songs for the catalogue, with hopefully more to come. Further currently has 26 shows slated through September 25th. They will have played 79 shows since the previous September, an annual total that outstrips Phil’s most prolific year and rivals the Grateful Dead’s schedule anytime after 1970. The wheel is turning and, apparently, you can’t slow it down.
Up Next: I was pleasantly surprised by 7 Walkers, the Kreutzmann/Papa Mali band with Matt Hubbard and whatever bass player they can get a hold of. I’m going to listen to a few more shows and give you all a rundown.
A controversial decision a few months ago saw them announcing the setlists for this festival ahead of time: the six official sets would each comprise one of their albums. Phil’s band had done this once before in May of ‘08 (though without announcing it in advance), and those shows had included some of the same albums. The reactions to this announcement had been rather befuddled; why do those again, and above all, why on earth advertise it so far in advance? This reviewer had found it strange to take away the element of surprise, a part of the atmosphere at Dead and Dead-family shows. As things got closer, however there was some excitement at the idea of hearing certain songs, particularly those that were rarely, if ever, part of the catalogue. Besides, it would have become immediately evident what they were up to anyway: it took less than an hour for people to figure it out when Phil and Friends did it two years ago.
Furthur’s current lineup has changed slightly, with the departure of Jay Lane on percussion and the replacement of background vocalist Zoe Ellis by Bay area alum Jeff Pehrson, but the sound is almost indistinguishable. Lane’s contribution had been somewhat superfluous, consisting more of embellishments than structural elements, and having an alto or a tenor voice in the background harmonies makes little difference. The band had continued their rehearsals, both private and “live,” in the run-up to the festival and they are improving noticeably. While some of the more esoteric material had an feeling of recital, the stuff that is well entrenched in the band-members’ respective solo catalogues hit some high peaks.
On the first night of the festival, the band played a two-and-a-half-hour set of popular material that would not feature in the headline shows, including the Eleven, with the original vocal arrangements, Eyes, Dark Star, Scarlet>Fire and Playin’ in the Band. The show was solid with at least one standout passage at the end of Unbroken Chain, a showcase for both Chimenti and John Kadlecik.
Two things became apparent that first night. First was the fluidity and responsiveness of Joe Russo. It was previously hard to discern just what he was doing, since he blended with Lane’s sound, but he is a very versatile player with a real facility in switching grooves and tempos in mid-swing. His ability to lockstep with Phil is reminiscent of John Molo, no small feat considering the disparity in their experience, but he’s more unconventional, peppering rim-shots and taps and rattles throughout.
The other revelation (if it can be called that) is that Phil is unquestionably the band’s director. It first became apparent when, at the reprise of Dark Star, Weir moved beautifully and organically into the Dark Star rhythm, setting the foundation for a jam on the main theme: Phil completely overrode it with his introduction to the piece’s “head” section. On the second night, Weir sang Friend of the Devil and included Phil’s verse (“You can borrow from the devil/ you can borrow from your friend/…”), which closed the song; after the last chord hit, Phil inexplicably felt it necessary to sing that verse again himself. Most tellingly, however, throughout the weekend, it was always Phil talking through the stage monitors between songs, as opposed to Weir or anyone else.
The six sets that comprised the official festival were, by and large, excellent, the first night being the stronger of the two. They covered each album in order, performing the modern versions of the songs: they omitted certain thematic passages, like the “Faster we go…” and “Quadlibet…” sections of The Other One, or the modulation at the end of Dancin’ In The Streets. Though it might have been an interesting exercise to perform everything just as it was on the record, learning it would have been unduly time-consuming and frankly pedantic.
The oddball material on the third night did come off a little stiff: Blues for Allah’s B-side had been performed exactly once and it was clear they were not completely comfortable with it. Aoxomoxoa’s Rosemary was a rare one (Phil sang it this time), and it is questionable whether “What’s Become of the Baby?” was ever performed at all. The lyrics, shared by Phil and Theresa Williams, were only slightly less indecipherable than on the record. Nonetheless, it was gratifying to relive those strange moments of the Grateful Dead’s catalogue in a live and modern setting, nothing’s wrong with a little nod to history and a touch of nostalgia.
Larry Campbell and Theresa Williams made liberal appearances throughout the weekend. Larry played a lot of fiddle, most notably on Brokedown Palace and Dupree’s Diamond Blues. The latter bears special mention as one the best songs of the festival: high energy and featuring stellar solos by all involved, it peaked out with a round of frankly hair-raising exchanges between Campbell, Kadlecik and Chimenti. Campbell played guitar as well on select songs: his contribution to Cumberland Blues was fantastic (even if everyone got a little carried away), I can’t think of anyone who can do that fast country stuff better than him.
Campbell’s wife Theresa Williams handled some important leads: ‘Till The Morning Comes, for one, which was originally sung in harmony by the boys in the band. Sunrise was a Donna Jean tune for Rex Jackson which definitely needed a female voice, and she handled that as well. Attics was another standout of the weekend. It was rather rarely performed by the Grateful Dead, and though it was in RatDog’s repertoire (mostly a-cappella), they never did it justice. The rendition led by Williams on the second night was an absolute gem, with beautiful, tightly orchestrated three- and four-part harmonies. It may have been the all-time best performance of the song.
A few more standouts worthy of mention for Kadlecik’s contributions: Easy Wind, Born Cross-Eyed, Help On the Way, Music (he closed it out with a monstrous lead), and Dancin’ In The streets. There was some confusion at the outset of the latter as to whether it would be in the disco-Dead or original style. However, his solo was straight out of the late-70s disco versions, both in the effect he was using (I’ve noted before how he seems to have all the exact same effects at Garcia), and the language of the riffs.
Finally, it should be mentioned that they premiered a new song by Robert Hunter known as Muli Guli, with a chord progression reminiscent of Pride of Cucamonga. It later appeared during the live rehearsal shows that followed the festival, joining Welcome To The Dance in a new batch of songs for the catalogue, with hopefully more to come. Further currently has 26 shows slated through September 25th. They will have played 79 shows since the previous September, an annual total that outstrips Phil’s most prolific year and rivals the Grateful Dead’s schedule anytime after 1970. The wheel is turning and, apparently, you can’t slow it down.
Up Next: I was pleasantly surprised by 7 Walkers, the Kreutzmann/Papa Mali band with Matt Hubbard and whatever bass player they can get a hold of. I’m going to listen to a few more shows and give you all a rundown.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Sound and a side-band: Dan Healy
A handful of shows by the Healy Treece Band appeared a few weeks ago on Workingman’s Tracker. I didn’t have anything to listen to just then so I grabbed three consecutive shows from the end of May 1981. There is not much information available on the Healy Treece Band, but they performed with a variable lineup from 1979 to 1981, and did a one-off performance in ‘83 on the occasion of Kreutzmann’s birthday. At various times, the lineup headed by Dan Healy and Richard Treece (both on guitars and vocals) also included Bill Kreutzmann, John Cipollina, Keith and Donna and at least three bass players.
The shows I heard from 1981 featured Cipollina and Kreutzmann. The band was solid bar band; they played blues more than anything else and had some funk influence. Their repertoire was not very large (they played the same material on the three tapes I heard), but it covered a pretty wide range, from 50s pop to Santana. I have to assume that some of the material (maybe a quarter) was original, or at least I’ve never come across it; the rest included Hand Jive, Unchain My Heart, Truck Drivin’ Man, Mystery Train, Long Black Veil and Black Magic Woman.
The band played small venues with average sound systems, which could be detrimental to the overall sound. Nonetheless, the show on May 28th was definitely poorly performed. Perhaps from the sound system, perhaps from under-rehearsing, the band was occasionally out of sync and unclear on forms and intros. John Cipollina was a saving presence in the band. Healy and Treece didn’t take very many solos, but Cipollina’s distinctive tremolo cut through and there were some really fun leads on most songs. Over the three days, the band tightened up considerably so that by May 30th, in Pleasanton CA, they were sounding good and tight. A couple of songs in particular stand out: Rain Song (not the Zeppelin tune) and Magic Door are interesting, animated songs with space to jam, and I enjoyed their take on Unchain My Heart, especially Cipollina’s leads. Overall, they were a highly competent, though not particularly inspired band that could certainly liven up a room but did not have anything original enough to warrant an extended career.
The Healy Treece Band never recorded an album, but there survive at least a dozen tapes. Those that appeared on Workingman’s Tracker all came from Joani Walker and Paul Scotton by way of Charlie Miller.
Even if HTB is no great revelation, it seems to warrant a short bio on Dan Healy. He came into contact with the Dead in the very early days of the San Francisco scene and would remain with the band until 1994. McNally described him as being the next guy, after Robert Hunter, considered to be a member of the band. Healy’s first job in San Francisco was working in a recording studio and he was living in a houseboat on the marina next to John Cipollina, who was playing lead guitar for the Quicksilver Messenger Service. As a techie, Dan was instantly useful to anyone involved in making music, especially since rock and roll equipment was not highly developed and none of the bands had any money. This earned Healy a standing invitation to any and all Quicksilver shows, to act as technical assistant. He inevitably crossed paths with the Grateful Dead, one night at the old Fillmore when Quicksilver and the Dead were sharing a bill. He was volunteered to fix an issue with Phil's amp and after the show Garcia invited him to help out with the Dead's sound.
In the early days, the Grateful Dead scene was anything but organized; while Healy was certainly persona grata there were no guarantees. Various sources describe his affiliations differently, but it seems that he spent a fair amount of time with the GD during Bear’s early tenure and incarceration. He drifted back to Quicksilver for a while around 69-70. The guys running Quicksilver (not Cipollina) were not the easy-going, open-hearted communistic types, however, and Healy found himself back with the Grateful Dead for good in 1971. From then on, in close collaboration with Ron Wickersham (from Alembic) and Bear, he was part of the cutting edge sound/amp industry that really centered around the Dead in the early 70s. He was, of course, intimately involved with the development of the Wall of Sound, and to this day he seems to be best known for that.
Healy survived the ’74 hiatus and went on to head the sound crew for the next twenty years. At the same time, he appears as producer, mixer, engineer etc. on almost every Dead and Dead-related project since the 70s. Intimately involved with the workings of the band, he was, by all accounts, constantly pushing the envelope of sound quality. He also contributed to the band’s grass-roots popularity when, in 1984, he prompted the establishment of the taper section, which was a first in the music business. He did not personally establish the section, but his pro-taper stance had made them a fixture for years; it came down to either banning them altogether or letting them run loose: someone made the suggestion to have a separate section.
In a radical, if ultimately unpopular move, he proposed in May 1992 that they remove all amps and monitors from the stage. The reasoning was that there was only so much that an engineer could do if he was working with sound coming from a mass of speakers all lined up: bleeding between amps and mics and feedback issues from monitors placed a limit on the sound quality. All the amps were thereafter kept in isolated chambers under the stage, running from there to both the soundboard and the monitor mixing console. Unfortunately, replacing the stage equipment with customizable in-ear monitors ultimately led to musicians isolating themselves, and was unpopular with fans in the front who liked the palpable rush of sound from the stage amps.
While Healy was an integral element in the GD sound, he could rub some people the wrong way. Throughout the mid 80s he liked to interject noises over the PA - sometimes during tuning breaks but also occasionally during songs. He also took pleasure in screwing with Weir’s vocals, which, according to some was one of the reasons for his eventual departure. Phil Lesh has one version: In 1993, a serious problem came up when Healy was caught running the PA at less-than-full capacity during Sting’s opening set (Sting was understandably angry and the band was very embarrassed about it). Prompted by this, Phil describes how he and Garcia took a closer listen to the soundboard tapes and noticed that Healy was making some very questionable decisions about Weir’s mix. That prompted the band to fire him in mid-March 1994. However, it’s apparent that he was not really officially terminated (the band was notoriously cowardly in that department): rather, they elected to have manager Cameron Sears inform Healy of the decision. Healy, for his part, maintains that he quit, unable to stand Garcia’s despicable health, appearance and performances. We’ll never know for sure, but considering the drama- and rumor-mill that worked overtime in the GD world, Healy might have gotten wind of the impending decision and there is probably some truth to both perspectives.
Since leaving the Dead, Healy continues to work in music mixing and production. A life-long guitar player, he plays with the Sky Blue Band, based in Marin; he recently recorded and mixed their debut album. He was running sound for Dark Star Orchestra in 2008, he’s been overseeing an antique-radio restoration company, and was working on instructional videos with Tony Bennett’s drummer. He's been married 33 years and has a daughter.
On another note: Charlie Miller posted the Avalon Ballroom show from May 19 1966 a month or so ago. I just heard it and it sounds unbelievable. I have no idea how he got such crystal sound from a 45-year-old tape. It's really primal dead, the kind of stuff that came out on Rare Cuts and Oddities: three minute songs, no jamming, bar-band-Dead. I loved it. Highly recommended.
Up Next: Most likely Furthurfest.
The shows I heard from 1981 featured Cipollina and Kreutzmann. The band was solid bar band; they played blues more than anything else and had some funk influence. Their repertoire was not very large (they played the same material on the three tapes I heard), but it covered a pretty wide range, from 50s pop to Santana. I have to assume that some of the material (maybe a quarter) was original, or at least I’ve never come across it; the rest included Hand Jive, Unchain My Heart, Truck Drivin’ Man, Mystery Train, Long Black Veil and Black Magic Woman.
The band played small venues with average sound systems, which could be detrimental to the overall sound. Nonetheless, the show on May 28th was definitely poorly performed. Perhaps from the sound system, perhaps from under-rehearsing, the band was occasionally out of sync and unclear on forms and intros. John Cipollina was a saving presence in the band. Healy and Treece didn’t take very many solos, but Cipollina’s distinctive tremolo cut through and there were some really fun leads on most songs. Over the three days, the band tightened up considerably so that by May 30th, in Pleasanton CA, they were sounding good and tight. A couple of songs in particular stand out: Rain Song (not the Zeppelin tune) and Magic Door are interesting, animated songs with space to jam, and I enjoyed their take on Unchain My Heart, especially Cipollina’s leads. Overall, they were a highly competent, though not particularly inspired band that could certainly liven up a room but did not have anything original enough to warrant an extended career.
The Healy Treece Band never recorded an album, but there survive at least a dozen tapes. Those that appeared on Workingman’s Tracker all came from Joani Walker and Paul Scotton by way of Charlie Miller.
Even if HTB is no great revelation, it seems to warrant a short bio on Dan Healy. He came into contact with the Dead in the very early days of the San Francisco scene and would remain with the band until 1994. McNally described him as being the next guy, after Robert Hunter, considered to be a member of the band. Healy’s first job in San Francisco was working in a recording studio and he was living in a houseboat on the marina next to John Cipollina, who was playing lead guitar for the Quicksilver Messenger Service. As a techie, Dan was instantly useful to anyone involved in making music, especially since rock and roll equipment was not highly developed and none of the bands had any money. This earned Healy a standing invitation to any and all Quicksilver shows, to act as technical assistant. He inevitably crossed paths with the Grateful Dead, one night at the old Fillmore when Quicksilver and the Dead were sharing a bill. He was volunteered to fix an issue with Phil's amp and after the show Garcia invited him to help out with the Dead's sound.
In the early days, the Grateful Dead scene was anything but organized; while Healy was certainly persona grata there were no guarantees. Various sources describe his affiliations differently, but it seems that he spent a fair amount of time with the GD during Bear’s early tenure and incarceration. He drifted back to Quicksilver for a while around 69-70. The guys running Quicksilver (not Cipollina) were not the easy-going, open-hearted communistic types, however, and Healy found himself back with the Grateful Dead for good in 1971. From then on, in close collaboration with Ron Wickersham (from Alembic) and Bear, he was part of the cutting edge sound/amp industry that really centered around the Dead in the early 70s. He was, of course, intimately involved with the development of the Wall of Sound, and to this day he seems to be best known for that.
Healy survived the ’74 hiatus and went on to head the sound crew for the next twenty years. At the same time, he appears as producer, mixer, engineer etc. on almost every Dead and Dead-related project since the 70s. Intimately involved with the workings of the band, he was, by all accounts, constantly pushing the envelope of sound quality. He also contributed to the band’s grass-roots popularity when, in 1984, he prompted the establishment of the taper section, which was a first in the music business. He did not personally establish the section, but his pro-taper stance had made them a fixture for years; it came down to either banning them altogether or letting them run loose: someone made the suggestion to have a separate section.
In a radical, if ultimately unpopular move, he proposed in May 1992 that they remove all amps and monitors from the stage. The reasoning was that there was only so much that an engineer could do if he was working with sound coming from a mass of speakers all lined up: bleeding between amps and mics and feedback issues from monitors placed a limit on the sound quality. All the amps were thereafter kept in isolated chambers under the stage, running from there to both the soundboard and the monitor mixing console. Unfortunately, replacing the stage equipment with customizable in-ear monitors ultimately led to musicians isolating themselves, and was unpopular with fans in the front who liked the palpable rush of sound from the stage amps.
While Healy was an integral element in the GD sound, he could rub some people the wrong way. Throughout the mid 80s he liked to interject noises over the PA - sometimes during tuning breaks but also occasionally during songs. He also took pleasure in screwing with Weir’s vocals, which, according to some was one of the reasons for his eventual departure. Phil Lesh has one version: In 1993, a serious problem came up when Healy was caught running the PA at less-than-full capacity during Sting’s opening set (Sting was understandably angry and the band was very embarrassed about it). Prompted by this, Phil describes how he and Garcia took a closer listen to the soundboard tapes and noticed that Healy was making some very questionable decisions about Weir’s mix. That prompted the band to fire him in mid-March 1994. However, it’s apparent that he was not really officially terminated (the band was notoriously cowardly in that department): rather, they elected to have manager Cameron Sears inform Healy of the decision. Healy, for his part, maintains that he quit, unable to stand Garcia’s despicable health, appearance and performances. We’ll never know for sure, but considering the drama- and rumor-mill that worked overtime in the GD world, Healy might have gotten wind of the impending decision and there is probably some truth to both perspectives.
Since leaving the Dead, Healy continues to work in music mixing and production. A life-long guitar player, he plays with the Sky Blue Band, based in Marin; he recently recorded and mixed their debut album. He was running sound for Dark Star Orchestra in 2008, he’s been overseeing an antique-radio restoration company, and was working on instructional videos with Tony Bennett’s drummer. He's been married 33 years and has a daughter.
On another note: Charlie Miller posted the Avalon Ballroom show from May 19 1966 a month or so ago. I just heard it and it sounds unbelievable. I have no idea how he got such crystal sound from a 45-year-old tape. It's really primal dead, the kind of stuff that came out on Rare Cuts and Oddities: three minute songs, no jamming, bar-band-Dead. I loved it. Highly recommended.
Up Next: Most likely Furthurfest.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Mid '85
I went looking for some bad shows this week. For a little while I’ve had a theory that shows are worse at the beginning or between tours; I’ve been meaning to listen to the infamous Boreal Ridge show; and I though 1985 was as good a place as any to find weak or sloppy playing. So, thinking I had a foolproof trifecta of negative circumstances, I listened to 5 shows from the middle of 1985: the last show of the short (9 dates) summer tour, the second of two Ventura shows (coming after a two-week break), Boreal Ridge (over a month after that), and two dates in the south in early September.
I don’t know quite why, but 1985 has always held connotations of heroin-wracked sloppiness, a period best forgotten, when Garcia spent his time nodding off against his amp and the others tried to compensate without excluding him. I suppose the January ’85 bust and the collapse in June of ’86 seemed like logical bookends for a really bad period. I consequently avoided that period like the plague, even though I had heard Dick’s Picks 21 and loved it. Well I’m here to set the record straight on ’85: Jerry’s playing was fantastic. His leads were powerful, he was precise and intentional with fills, transitions, he was on the ball with switching effects mid-phrase etc. No complaints there.
If there were shortcomings, they were in his singing. While the volume at which he sang was the same as usual, there are some moments when the smoke-damage to his vocal chords was painfully obvious. There were also definitely struggles with lyrics, on any number of songs: Big Railroad Blues, Cryptical (last one ever, and pretty bad – the reprise somewhat better), Ramble On Rose… However, this did not detract from the overall quality; unlike RatDog, for instance, the band did not loose steam when the vocals weren’t on point.
The overall sound they had developed was somewhat more conventional; songs tended to be shorter, and little effort was devoted to taking risks or improvising outside of defined jam segments (this trend continued for a few years). The result is that the tunes themselves were much tighter and could be played faster: the mid-80s have a certain energy, a certain accessibility that separates that period from any before or since. Nonetheless, the intricacy of the arrangements was the same as ever and careful listening is, to me, just as rewarding.
The Drums section in those days was really a lot of fun, more structured and rhythmic than later. There were a lot of alternative gourds and xylophones and things but the pre-recorded stuff had not made a noticeable appearance. Mickey bounced around on the beam a little in the middle of the solo rather than wait for the end, and there was some looping effects in use that provided a longer-sustained groove to build on.
Now, the Boreal Ridge show. There are no reviews in Deadbase but I have heard the same rumors as everyone else and the Illustrated Trip paints a sorry picture indeed. I was almost disappointed when the show wasn’t a complete train-wreck (except for the Day Tripper encore). The fact is, the band didn’t play that badly, and I imagine that the reputation it has gathered is, on one hand, more reflective of technical issues that musical ones, and on the other rendered disproportionate simply by virtue of the date being singled out.
The first set is indeed almost palpably trying for the musicians: the levels were off-kilter for the first few songs; a loud hum periodically emanated from Weir’s rack, something that sounded like false notes (loud, sustained ones); we can hear Mickey and Garcia griping about technical issues between songs; and Weir calls an end to the first set after seven songs, rather than the usual nine. There are the odd miscues and an awkward jammy segment in the middle of Bucket, but it’s not a disaster and songs were still tight and relatively intricate. The second set was better, with a solid Stranger opener, China-Rider (a bit ragged in the transition) and a nice He’s Gone before a huge Drums segment. Truckin’>Black Peter (with recurring sound issues)>Around and Around followed Space and the set closed with a solid Lovelight. The encore, a throwaway if there ever was one, was awful, sounding the way I expected the whole show to sound.
The band hadn’t played in more than two months, it was the first time they played that venue, and there were serious equipment issues that affected both the sound output and the ability of the band-members to hear themselves and each-other. All of this I knew, and I went into it expecting the worst show I’d ever heard. I won’t say it was very good – objectively speaking it was subpar - but it certainly doesn’t quite deserve the reputation it has. They actually scheduled a return visit to Boreal Ridge about a year later, but due to Garcia’s health, it never happened.
So, in retrospect, another myth busted. If I had to guess why 1985 is not a very popular year, I would venture that the lack of spacey exploration is a factor, as is the “Jerry’s drug issues” cloud that hangs over that period. And yet for the band, things were going rather well. It seems that Garcia’s bust in Golden Gate Park, coming directly on the heels of an intervention, did in fact prompt Jerry to clean up. They sold out 65 of the 71 shows they played that year and grossed a record $11.5 million, suggesting that their fanbase was not shrinking. Garcia commented later that the years were finally starting to pay off. They were still a few years away from Touch of Gray, but Phil quit cocaine a little while later, Bill started going to AA meetings, and Bonnie Parker, the last GD employee with real drug issues, was let go. Things were finally looking up.
All that to say that the mid 80s are seeming less and less frightening the more I look, which opens the door on a whole other period that has never been on my radar. I realize as I write this, of course, that for the first few years, anything outside of 1976-7 was not on my radar either… Well, live and learn.
Now. It has been brought to my attention that my entries are too damn long, that blogs should take five minutes to look over, and that nobody wants to read an essay every week. What do you think? I could just as easily break these up and post 500 words or so a week…
Up next. I’m going to listen to a few ‘81 shows from Healy’s band, when Kreutzmann was on board. I might post on those or just wait for Furthurfest. You’ll find out next week.
I don’t know quite why, but 1985 has always held connotations of heroin-wracked sloppiness, a period best forgotten, when Garcia spent his time nodding off against his amp and the others tried to compensate without excluding him. I suppose the January ’85 bust and the collapse in June of ’86 seemed like logical bookends for a really bad period. I consequently avoided that period like the plague, even though I had heard Dick’s Picks 21 and loved it. Well I’m here to set the record straight on ’85: Jerry’s playing was fantastic. His leads were powerful, he was precise and intentional with fills, transitions, he was on the ball with switching effects mid-phrase etc. No complaints there.
If there were shortcomings, they were in his singing. While the volume at which he sang was the same as usual, there are some moments when the smoke-damage to his vocal chords was painfully obvious. There were also definitely struggles with lyrics, on any number of songs: Big Railroad Blues, Cryptical (last one ever, and pretty bad – the reprise somewhat better), Ramble On Rose… However, this did not detract from the overall quality; unlike RatDog, for instance, the band did not loose steam when the vocals weren’t on point.
The overall sound they had developed was somewhat more conventional; songs tended to be shorter, and little effort was devoted to taking risks or improvising outside of defined jam segments (this trend continued for a few years). The result is that the tunes themselves were much tighter and could be played faster: the mid-80s have a certain energy, a certain accessibility that separates that period from any before or since. Nonetheless, the intricacy of the arrangements was the same as ever and careful listening is, to me, just as rewarding.
The Drums section in those days was really a lot of fun, more structured and rhythmic than later. There were a lot of alternative gourds and xylophones and things but the pre-recorded stuff had not made a noticeable appearance. Mickey bounced around on the beam a little in the middle of the solo rather than wait for the end, and there was some looping effects in use that provided a longer-sustained groove to build on.
Now, the Boreal Ridge show. There are no reviews in Deadbase but I have heard the same rumors as everyone else and the Illustrated Trip paints a sorry picture indeed. I was almost disappointed when the show wasn’t a complete train-wreck (except for the Day Tripper encore). The fact is, the band didn’t play that badly, and I imagine that the reputation it has gathered is, on one hand, more reflective of technical issues that musical ones, and on the other rendered disproportionate simply by virtue of the date being singled out.
The first set is indeed almost palpably trying for the musicians: the levels were off-kilter for the first few songs; a loud hum periodically emanated from Weir’s rack, something that sounded like false notes (loud, sustained ones); we can hear Mickey and Garcia griping about technical issues between songs; and Weir calls an end to the first set after seven songs, rather than the usual nine. There are the odd miscues and an awkward jammy segment in the middle of Bucket, but it’s not a disaster and songs were still tight and relatively intricate. The second set was better, with a solid Stranger opener, China-Rider (a bit ragged in the transition) and a nice He’s Gone before a huge Drums segment. Truckin’>Black Peter (with recurring sound issues)>Around and Around followed Space and the set closed with a solid Lovelight. The encore, a throwaway if there ever was one, was awful, sounding the way I expected the whole show to sound.
The band hadn’t played in more than two months, it was the first time they played that venue, and there were serious equipment issues that affected both the sound output and the ability of the band-members to hear themselves and each-other. All of this I knew, and I went into it expecting the worst show I’d ever heard. I won’t say it was very good – objectively speaking it was subpar - but it certainly doesn’t quite deserve the reputation it has. They actually scheduled a return visit to Boreal Ridge about a year later, but due to Garcia’s health, it never happened.
So, in retrospect, another myth busted. If I had to guess why 1985 is not a very popular year, I would venture that the lack of spacey exploration is a factor, as is the “Jerry’s drug issues” cloud that hangs over that period. And yet for the band, things were going rather well. It seems that Garcia’s bust in Golden Gate Park, coming directly on the heels of an intervention, did in fact prompt Jerry to clean up. They sold out 65 of the 71 shows they played that year and grossed a record $11.5 million, suggesting that their fanbase was not shrinking. Garcia commented later that the years were finally starting to pay off. They were still a few years away from Touch of Gray, but Phil quit cocaine a little while later, Bill started going to AA meetings, and Bonnie Parker, the last GD employee with real drug issues, was let go. Things were finally looking up.
All that to say that the mid 80s are seeming less and less frightening the more I look, which opens the door on a whole other period that has never been on my radar. I realize as I write this, of course, that for the first few years, anything outside of 1976-7 was not on my radar either… Well, live and learn.
Now. It has been brought to my attention that my entries are too damn long, that blogs should take five minutes to look over, and that nobody wants to read an essay every week. What do you think? I could just as easily break these up and post 500 words or so a week…
Up next. I’m going to listen to a few ‘81 shows from Healy’s band, when Kreutzmann was on board. I might post on those or just wait for Furthurfest. You’ll find out next week.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Further reading
I read two books last weekend: Sandy Troy’s Captain Trips and Steve Parish’s Home Before Daylight. They are different in a number of ways but have their focus on Garcia, their length and their scholarly weight in common. To be honest, someone lent me Captain Trips and I burned through it pretty quick, so I figured I was on a roll and dove into Home right away. Anyhow, for those of you who haven’t read them, here are my two cents.
Captain Trips, (Garcia’s prankster name, which he didn’t like) chronicles his life, like many other books, but was completed soon after Garcia’s February ’94 wedding to Deborah Koons and published later that year. It consequently lacks the fatalistic thread that runs through later accounts. It has the same chronological pattern as McNally’s and Phil’s books, which is that about half of the text addresses the period before 1970; it also completely skips over the early 80s, which were to my mind a pivotal period in the logistical dynamics of the band.
The factual content is, to my knowledge, perfectly adequate. Not that I know everything, but I didn’t come across anything I knew to be false. It did include certain pieces of information I appreciated: addresses of the Chateau and St. Michael’s Alley, gross earnings for a couple of years, release dates etc. Aside from the odd precision, however, the book rolls through events and facts without much commentary or reflection. On one hand, it keeps the author’s interpretation out of the way, but on the other it keeps things superficial.
The focus on Garcia and the simplistic approach to various events obscures the wider dynamics of his life. For instance, the evolution of the Jerry Garcia Band is described as though Jerry was singly responsible for the changing lineup. It does not address the logistics of the life of musicians, which is that people often simply drift to where there’s work, or get married, or move to Kansas, or whatever; nor does it discuss the trends of the music itself, which has no intentional guide but can make one person more or less suited to the slot or prompt a change in instrumentation. Likewise with the GD’s various side-projects: a passage on the establishment of the Rex Foundation mentions only Garcia, ignoring the untraceable, committee aspect of every decision. Finally, the departure of Keith and Donna is presented as a firing, whereas McNally paints a the decision as a mutual agreement.
Jerry’s personal issues are almost completely absent. In fairness, since the book was being written while he was still there to comment on it, it would have been disrespectful to delve into his issues with women in general or heroin in particular, areas that have since been addressed elsewhere. His 1985 arrest in Golden Gate Park is mentioned in passing, with details available in the arrest report, and an excerpt from an interview has him admitting that he had, at one point, gotten into some pretty nasty stuff. The book’s admission that there was, at one point, cocaine and heroin involved is mitigated by the suggestion that that problem had come and gone: “Garcia’s drug addiction was under control, the band was more popular than ever…”
As far as his many complex relationships, they are barely present in the story. I would speculate that Deborah Koons, a woman known for her close control over Jerry’s affairs, perhaps born of insecurity, had an editorial hand in the book.
Anyhow, in retrospect, this biography lite was perfectly well suited to the time and audience. Jacketed in tie-dye and titled to evoke Jerry’s counter-culture iconography, it provides a broad overview of his life and projects: his childhood, bands, recording gigs, etc, while avoiding deeper underlying processes and issues. For a deadhead in the 90s, I imagine this would have been everything you wanted to know.
A completely different picture is presented by Parish in Home Before Daylight. The book is an autobiography and is centered on Steve Parish’s experience as a central member of the Grateful Dead family, but Parish was one of the people closest to Garcia throughout the 80s and 90s. I should mention that at no point does it come across that he is trying to either exaggerate his involvement or capitalize on their relationship. His portrayal of Garcia is much more character-driven, and specific dates or facts are incidental to the story.
The story starts with Parish’s early adulthood: at seventeen or so, he hatches a plan to finance a relocation to the West Coast by selling a batch of LSD. He winds up at Riker’s Island. Eventually finding his way into the Grateful Dead crew via Weir’s ranch, Rex Jackson’s couch, Quicksilver and Alembic, he spends the first few years driving trucks across the country, then reveling in the non-stop party occasioned by Dead tours.
There is no shortage of drug-fueled-rampage stories. He flipped an equipment truck on a tight curve while driving wired on amphetamines; he had a four-way marriage going for a while; he used to sleep with every groupie he could get his hands on, he threw a promoter off the stage because he didn’t recognize him, he lived on nitrous and pot for years, and so on and so forth. The tales of his life on the road are exactly what you would expect, and Parish is unapologetic to the last.
Being intimately involved in the day-to-day life of the band and crew, he is more honest about the rampant drug use, especially cocaine, though he maintains he only liked the “occasional” toot. He details the end of Rex Jackson’s life in a months-long coke bender (fueled by a gallon-size ziplock of blow that he somehow scored), and the paranoia and irritation that infested the family in 73-74. Parish is reassuringly matter-of-fact on this subject; I say reassuringly because I don’t get the sense he’s exaggerating or glorifying the drugs they took; he is quite honest about the downsides of over-indulgence and the personal shortcomings engendered by their use. He especially bemoans the early-70s switch from communal drugs like nitrous, pot and LSD to harder stuff like cocaine and heroin.
His close relationship with Garcia developed in the 80s when he became manager of JGB along with being the main guitar roadie for the GD. His duties would evolve almost towards a personal assistant position by the nineties; the last time he saw Jerry, he was instructing Parish as to how he would like to see the new Club Front laid out. They traveled together while on the road, they went on vacation to Hawaii together with their families, he helped a very nervous Jerry get dressed for his 1994 wedding, and the only really emotional moment in the book comes when, standing over the casket, he absentmindedly brushes a little dandruff off Jerry’s shoulder, as he had so many times before.
Garcia’s use of heroin was constant, according to Parish, even if there were ebbs and flows, and it was an awful sight to see. He writes of being very conflicted about what to do; while his main job was to protect Jerry from the outside world, there was a grey line between protecting Jerry and letting him insulate himself. Whereas he had been able to refuse Jackson when asked to hold his stash, he found he could not refuse Jerry. The volatility and defensiveness that Garcia exhibited in response to any intrusion on his private life is pretty well documented, and applied as well to the outside world as to his closest friends. One aborted intervention saw him hold the door while everyone came in only to slam it behind them and walk off down the street. I have no experience with drugs of that sort, but it seems to me that on some level, he chose to stick with heroin, since no amount of interventions, arrests, health issues, friends, girlfriends or wives were able to stop him. Consequently, those close to him could either tacitly disapprove or risk further isolating him.
Parish does have a fondness for one member of the band in particular, and that’s Weir. It becomes apparent in his description of Bob as the most level-headed guy in the group, forced into an unenviable position of taking up Garcia’s slack when he started slipping in the late 70s, and who did more than anyone else to confront Garcia. He seems to agree with everyone else in that he describes Weir as an honestly kind, generous person who cares deeply for others; one who did the fewest drugs, who was always uncomfortable with the Hell’s Angels etc. The friendship seems mutual; the book has a foreword from Weir that is quite funny but conveys a real familiarity and affection: “Let’s be clear about this,” it begins, “Steve Parish is definitively a mixed blessing.” It goes on to reminisce about road trips and equipment snafus, and these memories are complemented in the main text with Parish’s memories of inadvertently getting Weir picked up for unpaid parking tickets, and later wrecking Weir’s BMW when he parked his truck uphill of it and the handbrake failed.
There are no major revelations in the book, but it certainly has a unique angle on the Grateful Dead. On a broad objective level, it’s really about a man who refused to grow up, one who got out of jail on a drug-dealing rap only to run off to the west coast to take a lot of acid, who drove a Harley as fast and as recklessly as possible until California passed a helmet law and he lost interest, who was content to get off the phone with his wife, who had just given birth to their daughter, and run upstairs to have a three-way, one who got stoned in a church with a guy about to get married. And yet he lived the rock-n-roll lifestyle to the fullest and came out just fine on the other side. He’s married now, to a wife who has no background in that world and no tolerance for his screwing around, and they have two kids. He’s still close to the GD family (I suppose those kinds of bonds don’t break easily). I couldn’t tell you what he’s doing these days, but he seems to have survived rather well, considering.
Captain Trips, (Garcia’s prankster name, which he didn’t like) chronicles his life, like many other books, but was completed soon after Garcia’s February ’94 wedding to Deborah Koons and published later that year. It consequently lacks the fatalistic thread that runs through later accounts. It has the same chronological pattern as McNally’s and Phil’s books, which is that about half of the text addresses the period before 1970; it also completely skips over the early 80s, which were to my mind a pivotal period in the logistical dynamics of the band.
The factual content is, to my knowledge, perfectly adequate. Not that I know everything, but I didn’t come across anything I knew to be false. It did include certain pieces of information I appreciated: addresses of the Chateau and St. Michael’s Alley, gross earnings for a couple of years, release dates etc. Aside from the odd precision, however, the book rolls through events and facts without much commentary or reflection. On one hand, it keeps the author’s interpretation out of the way, but on the other it keeps things superficial.
The focus on Garcia and the simplistic approach to various events obscures the wider dynamics of his life. For instance, the evolution of the Jerry Garcia Band is described as though Jerry was singly responsible for the changing lineup. It does not address the logistics of the life of musicians, which is that people often simply drift to where there’s work, or get married, or move to Kansas, or whatever; nor does it discuss the trends of the music itself, which has no intentional guide but can make one person more or less suited to the slot or prompt a change in instrumentation. Likewise with the GD’s various side-projects: a passage on the establishment of the Rex Foundation mentions only Garcia, ignoring the untraceable, committee aspect of every decision. Finally, the departure of Keith and Donna is presented as a firing, whereas McNally paints a the decision as a mutual agreement.
Jerry’s personal issues are almost completely absent. In fairness, since the book was being written while he was still there to comment on it, it would have been disrespectful to delve into his issues with women in general or heroin in particular, areas that have since been addressed elsewhere. His 1985 arrest in Golden Gate Park is mentioned in passing, with details available in the arrest report, and an excerpt from an interview has him admitting that he had, at one point, gotten into some pretty nasty stuff. The book’s admission that there was, at one point, cocaine and heroin involved is mitigated by the suggestion that that problem had come and gone: “Garcia’s drug addiction was under control, the band was more popular than ever…”
As far as his many complex relationships, they are barely present in the story. I would speculate that Deborah Koons, a woman known for her close control over Jerry’s affairs, perhaps born of insecurity, had an editorial hand in the book.
Anyhow, in retrospect, this biography lite was perfectly well suited to the time and audience. Jacketed in tie-dye and titled to evoke Jerry’s counter-culture iconography, it provides a broad overview of his life and projects: his childhood, bands, recording gigs, etc, while avoiding deeper underlying processes and issues. For a deadhead in the 90s, I imagine this would have been everything you wanted to know.
A completely different picture is presented by Parish in Home Before Daylight. The book is an autobiography and is centered on Steve Parish’s experience as a central member of the Grateful Dead family, but Parish was one of the people closest to Garcia throughout the 80s and 90s. I should mention that at no point does it come across that he is trying to either exaggerate his involvement or capitalize on their relationship. His portrayal of Garcia is much more character-driven, and specific dates or facts are incidental to the story.
The story starts with Parish’s early adulthood: at seventeen or so, he hatches a plan to finance a relocation to the West Coast by selling a batch of LSD. He winds up at Riker’s Island. Eventually finding his way into the Grateful Dead crew via Weir’s ranch, Rex Jackson’s couch, Quicksilver and Alembic, he spends the first few years driving trucks across the country, then reveling in the non-stop party occasioned by Dead tours.
There is no shortage of drug-fueled-rampage stories. He flipped an equipment truck on a tight curve while driving wired on amphetamines; he had a four-way marriage going for a while; he used to sleep with every groupie he could get his hands on, he threw a promoter off the stage because he didn’t recognize him, he lived on nitrous and pot for years, and so on and so forth. The tales of his life on the road are exactly what you would expect, and Parish is unapologetic to the last.
Being intimately involved in the day-to-day life of the band and crew, he is more honest about the rampant drug use, especially cocaine, though he maintains he only liked the “occasional” toot. He details the end of Rex Jackson’s life in a months-long coke bender (fueled by a gallon-size ziplock of blow that he somehow scored), and the paranoia and irritation that infested the family in 73-74. Parish is reassuringly matter-of-fact on this subject; I say reassuringly because I don’t get the sense he’s exaggerating or glorifying the drugs they took; he is quite honest about the downsides of over-indulgence and the personal shortcomings engendered by their use. He especially bemoans the early-70s switch from communal drugs like nitrous, pot and LSD to harder stuff like cocaine and heroin.
His close relationship with Garcia developed in the 80s when he became manager of JGB along with being the main guitar roadie for the GD. His duties would evolve almost towards a personal assistant position by the nineties; the last time he saw Jerry, he was instructing Parish as to how he would like to see the new Club Front laid out. They traveled together while on the road, they went on vacation to Hawaii together with their families, he helped a very nervous Jerry get dressed for his 1994 wedding, and the only really emotional moment in the book comes when, standing over the casket, he absentmindedly brushes a little dandruff off Jerry’s shoulder, as he had so many times before.
Garcia’s use of heroin was constant, according to Parish, even if there were ebbs and flows, and it was an awful sight to see. He writes of being very conflicted about what to do; while his main job was to protect Jerry from the outside world, there was a grey line between protecting Jerry and letting him insulate himself. Whereas he had been able to refuse Jackson when asked to hold his stash, he found he could not refuse Jerry. The volatility and defensiveness that Garcia exhibited in response to any intrusion on his private life is pretty well documented, and applied as well to the outside world as to his closest friends. One aborted intervention saw him hold the door while everyone came in only to slam it behind them and walk off down the street. I have no experience with drugs of that sort, but it seems to me that on some level, he chose to stick with heroin, since no amount of interventions, arrests, health issues, friends, girlfriends or wives were able to stop him. Consequently, those close to him could either tacitly disapprove or risk further isolating him.
Parish does have a fondness for one member of the band in particular, and that’s Weir. It becomes apparent in his description of Bob as the most level-headed guy in the group, forced into an unenviable position of taking up Garcia’s slack when he started slipping in the late 70s, and who did more than anyone else to confront Garcia. He seems to agree with everyone else in that he describes Weir as an honestly kind, generous person who cares deeply for others; one who did the fewest drugs, who was always uncomfortable with the Hell’s Angels etc. The friendship seems mutual; the book has a foreword from Weir that is quite funny but conveys a real familiarity and affection: “Let’s be clear about this,” it begins, “Steve Parish is definitively a mixed blessing.” It goes on to reminisce about road trips and equipment snafus, and these memories are complemented in the main text with Parish’s memories of inadvertently getting Weir picked up for unpaid parking tickets, and later wrecking Weir’s BMW when he parked his truck uphill of it and the handbrake failed.
There are no major revelations in the book, but it certainly has a unique angle on the Grateful Dead. On a broad objective level, it’s really about a man who refused to grow up, one who got out of jail on a drug-dealing rap only to run off to the west coast to take a lot of acid, who drove a Harley as fast and as recklessly as possible until California passed a helmet law and he lost interest, who was content to get off the phone with his wife, who had just given birth to their daughter, and run upstairs to have a three-way, one who got stoned in a church with a guy about to get married. And yet he lived the rock-n-roll lifestyle to the fullest and came out just fine on the other side. He’s married now, to a wife who has no background in that world and no tolerance for his screwing around, and they have two kids. He’s still close to the GD family (I suppose those kinds of bonds don’t break easily). I couldn’t tell you what he’s doing these days, but he seems to have survived rather well, considering.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Odds and Ends
So I haven't written anything in the past few weeks for two reasons: primarily because I've been swamped with work, and also because I've been listening to disjointed, recently downloaded odds and ends, to kill time before Furthurfest without getting too deep into anything.
I heard a few shows from Mike Gordon's March tour. I don't know his solo material very well, and I was surprised not to to hear a single Phish tune, which is really to his credit. I should say I'm not an expert; there may have been some rarer Phish tunes in there, maybe Adelman's Yard, or Sugar Shack? His 5-piece band consists of two drummers, Todd Isler and Craig Myers (sp?), Scott Murawski on lead guitar and Tom Cleary on keys. Murawski is a force of nature, a monstrous player who can shred the fastest country I've ever heard, and Cleary can be really impressive as well. I don't know where he came from, but for some reason Gordon likes to say his name a lot.
The music gets really funky; there are a few songs that just shake your insides, as you might expect form Mike Gordon. As you might also expect, there are a few floaty tunes with mindless lyrics, but it's mainly really fun stuff. Each show I heard had one, maybe two songs by Cleary and Murawski, including Cruel World, which Murawski was doing regularly with Kreutzmann a few years back.
There is some Gordo banter, mostly platitudes "great to be here, shout out to whoever", but he does have a thing about "is" that he does a lot. Something about a cat named Is whose name should be called repeatedly and at random: "is is is is is is ..." The other thing I noticed was that he usually announces that he's going to go hang out by the merchandise table after the show. I was surprised to hear it simply because imagined that, being in Phish, he wouldn't need to push t-shirts, but considering that the material and the sound are so un-Phish-like, I suppose he is building a different audience.
My favorite show was on March 12th in Philadelphia. Most of the show was really upbeat and funky, and featured appearances by at least one member of the Chieftains. I say that because I only heard one guest intro, yet there was an accordion and a fiddle, and also a tap-dancer somewhere. There were three Murawski tunes, including Cruel World and one ludicrously fast country thing that I listened to twice in a row.
Overall, I like the band a lot. I don't know that I would listen to a whole tour (there is a fair amount of repetition from show to show), but I'm definitely learning some of those bass lines.
After the Gordon tour I picked up a series of Mickey Hart-related recordings that surfaced on Workingman's Tracker. The earlier one was a series of tracks dating from 1972 recorded at Mickey's barn in Novato. Mickey built a recording studio up there, and after leaving the Dead in February '71, he spend a lot of time there playing and recording. I knew that he had gone into Diga Rhythm in that time but I was surprised to hear the other material he was doing, collected under the title Mickey Hart and the Marin County Collective. First on the tape is Fire on the Mountain, which he apparently wrote himself. The groove is substantially different, even if it's definitely recognizable, and there were maybe a half-dozen alternate verses. At least one of these reappeared in the Other Ones/The Dead period when Mickey sang Fire. Other tracks involved a host of Bay Area musicians doing their own material, including David Freiberg, John Cipollina, Barry Melton and others. Some of it is really good, especially Speed Racer. Ghost Riders in the Sky stands out in the list, a slightly different arrangement than the final cut everyone knows.
Phil Lesh and Garcia show up on a number of tracks. Lesh is featured on one track about vampires that reminds me of The Who's Boris the Spider, and Garcia appears on both Fire on the Mountain takes as well as a few others. At the same time, there was some experimentation with swirly electronic noises and feedback, a sort of intermediary between Feedback and Seastones. It's not particularly pretty but it is a serious experiment with that sort of alternative noise music. One is a feedback/organ jam, one involves drums, harmonica, accordion and howling vocal stuff, featuring Ned Lagin, and one is straight space noise. Finally, there is a tune called Marshmallow Road (spacey psychedelia, as you might expect), which weaves in electronic sounds and sped-up vocals within the song.
Later, during the hiatus, Mickey was playing with Diga Rhythm Band (Diga meaning "naked" in Sanskrit). I have yet to find any reliable set- or show-lists for this band, so I have no idea how frequent these shows were, nor whether they involved only Diga or were part of a Bay Area lineup. There are only a few pieces on the surviving tapes, though they are soundboards, and I must confess I can't fully appreciate what's going on there. It all sounds well and good to me, frankly, but knowing the lineup, it probably involves complicated polyrhythmic patterns well outside the boundaries of western musical vocabulary. Son of Mickey's tabla teacher Usted Allarakha, Zakir Hussein headed and did the talking for the band, but Mickey got a few solo sections, and Hussein introduced him as a member of the Grateful Dead. It seems that Mickey retained all the cachet of a GD band member in his time off. The lineup of San Francisco musicians involved in the Novato sessions was pretty seminal, and he was still a musical celebrity in early '75, when he was not yet officially back in the band.
A month or so ago, an article appeared in the Atlantic Monthly which touched on the scholarly attention being paid to the Grateful Dead nowadays. The band appeared in various studies and such throughout their existence, but generally as a manifestation or example of hippie culture and rarely in terms broad yet clear enough to warrant much attention. The specific Deadhead phenomenon has been the subject of dissertations and college courses for a number of years, but it is only recently that doctoral and post-doctoral studies have focused on, say, the influence of the classical music structure in GD music, the nature of their brand of improvisation, or the place in the "Americana" canon of songs like Dire Wolf or Peggy-O. I poked around and came across a collection of essays written by PhDs in the past few years, called All Graceful Instruments. I bought it, mainly because I thought the title reference was satisfactorily obscure, and in spite of the high price tag ($40: it's a print-on-demand thing from Cambridge Scholars Publishing). I've only gotten through one chapter so far but it was very good, managing to discuss objectively the improvisational structure of Dark Star and The Eleven, and using that as a model to frame out the band's improvisational approach to their music in general. The components of the argument are relatively common knowledge to most deadheads, but they combine to make a scholarly discussion possible. I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.
Anyhow, I think that's it. I'm gonna read Sandy Troy's "Captain Trips" soon, so I'll post on that. Up next, I think I'll try to compare the P&F and Furthur versions of the Dead albums covered at Furthurfest.
Cheers.
I heard a few shows from Mike Gordon's March tour. I don't know his solo material very well, and I was surprised not to to hear a single Phish tune, which is really to his credit. I should say I'm not an expert; there may have been some rarer Phish tunes in there, maybe Adelman's Yard, or Sugar Shack? His 5-piece band consists of two drummers, Todd Isler and Craig Myers (sp?), Scott Murawski on lead guitar and Tom Cleary on keys. Murawski is a force of nature, a monstrous player who can shred the fastest country I've ever heard, and Cleary can be really impressive as well. I don't know where he came from, but for some reason Gordon likes to say his name a lot.
The music gets really funky; there are a few songs that just shake your insides, as you might expect form Mike Gordon. As you might also expect, there are a few floaty tunes with mindless lyrics, but it's mainly really fun stuff. Each show I heard had one, maybe two songs by Cleary and Murawski, including Cruel World, which Murawski was doing regularly with Kreutzmann a few years back.
There is some Gordo banter, mostly platitudes "great to be here, shout out to whoever", but he does have a thing about "is" that he does a lot. Something about a cat named Is whose name should be called repeatedly and at random: "is is is is is is ..." The other thing I noticed was that he usually announces that he's going to go hang out by the merchandise table after the show. I was surprised to hear it simply because imagined that, being in Phish, he wouldn't need to push t-shirts, but considering that the material and the sound are so un-Phish-like, I suppose he is building a different audience.
My favorite show was on March 12th in Philadelphia. Most of the show was really upbeat and funky, and featured appearances by at least one member of the Chieftains. I say that because I only heard one guest intro, yet there was an accordion and a fiddle, and also a tap-dancer somewhere. There were three Murawski tunes, including Cruel World and one ludicrously fast country thing that I listened to twice in a row.
Overall, I like the band a lot. I don't know that I would listen to a whole tour (there is a fair amount of repetition from show to show), but I'm definitely learning some of those bass lines.
After the Gordon tour I picked up a series of Mickey Hart-related recordings that surfaced on Workingman's Tracker. The earlier one was a series of tracks dating from 1972 recorded at Mickey's barn in Novato. Mickey built a recording studio up there, and after leaving the Dead in February '71, he spend a lot of time there playing and recording. I knew that he had gone into Diga Rhythm in that time but I was surprised to hear the other material he was doing, collected under the title Mickey Hart and the Marin County Collective. First on the tape is Fire on the Mountain, which he apparently wrote himself. The groove is substantially different, even if it's definitely recognizable, and there were maybe a half-dozen alternate verses. At least one of these reappeared in the Other Ones/The Dead period when Mickey sang Fire. Other tracks involved a host of Bay Area musicians doing their own material, including David Freiberg, John Cipollina, Barry Melton and others. Some of it is really good, especially Speed Racer. Ghost Riders in the Sky stands out in the list, a slightly different arrangement than the final cut everyone knows.
Phil Lesh and Garcia show up on a number of tracks. Lesh is featured on one track about vampires that reminds me of The Who's Boris the Spider, and Garcia appears on both Fire on the Mountain takes as well as a few others. At the same time, there was some experimentation with swirly electronic noises and feedback, a sort of intermediary between Feedback and Seastones. It's not particularly pretty but it is a serious experiment with that sort of alternative noise music. One is a feedback/organ jam, one involves drums, harmonica, accordion and howling vocal stuff, featuring Ned Lagin, and one is straight space noise. Finally, there is a tune called Marshmallow Road (spacey psychedelia, as you might expect), which weaves in electronic sounds and sped-up vocals within the song.
Later, during the hiatus, Mickey was playing with Diga Rhythm Band (Diga meaning "naked" in Sanskrit). I have yet to find any reliable set- or show-lists for this band, so I have no idea how frequent these shows were, nor whether they involved only Diga or were part of a Bay Area lineup. There are only a few pieces on the surviving tapes, though they are soundboards, and I must confess I can't fully appreciate what's going on there. It all sounds well and good to me, frankly, but knowing the lineup, it probably involves complicated polyrhythmic patterns well outside the boundaries of western musical vocabulary. Son of Mickey's tabla teacher Usted Allarakha, Zakir Hussein headed and did the talking for the band, but Mickey got a few solo sections, and Hussein introduced him as a member of the Grateful Dead. It seems that Mickey retained all the cachet of a GD band member in his time off. The lineup of San Francisco musicians involved in the Novato sessions was pretty seminal, and he was still a musical celebrity in early '75, when he was not yet officially back in the band.
A month or so ago, an article appeared in the Atlantic Monthly which touched on the scholarly attention being paid to the Grateful Dead nowadays. The band appeared in various studies and such throughout their existence, but generally as a manifestation or example of hippie culture and rarely in terms broad yet clear enough to warrant much attention. The specific Deadhead phenomenon has been the subject of dissertations and college courses for a number of years, but it is only recently that doctoral and post-doctoral studies have focused on, say, the influence of the classical music structure in GD music, the nature of their brand of improvisation, or the place in the "Americana" canon of songs like Dire Wolf or Peggy-O. I poked around and came across a collection of essays written by PhDs in the past few years, called All Graceful Instruments. I bought it, mainly because I thought the title reference was satisfactorily obscure, and in spite of the high price tag ($40: it's a print-on-demand thing from Cambridge Scholars Publishing). I've only gotten through one chapter so far but it was very good, managing to discuss objectively the improvisational structure of Dark Star and The Eleven, and using that as a model to frame out the band's improvisational approach to their music in general. The components of the argument are relatively common knowledge to most deadheads, but they combine to make a scholarly discussion possible. I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.
Anyhow, I think that's it. I'm gonna read Sandy Troy's "Captain Trips" soon, so I'll post on that. Up next, I think I'll try to compare the P&F and Furthur versions of the Dead albums covered at Furthurfest.
Cheers.
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